For nearly three years Quarterdeck Corp. has been considered damaged goods on Wall Street, but that's about to change.

The Santa Monica software company, originally known for products that help personal computers manage their memory, has quietly been repositioning itself to become a major player in the business of providing software to help navigate the Internet.

This week, for the first time since the changes have taken place, the company's executives have gone on the road to meet with reporters and editors from trade papers to prime them for a big announcement expected Monday. The company is swearing the reporters to secrecy, leading to speculation that it will involve an acquisition of either a major Internet-related product or technology.

While the acquisition of a major product may not seem spectacular, one observer noted that it was Lotus' acquisition of Notes a year ago that suddenly gave Lotus a new lease on life (and got it a meaty takeover bid from IBM).

There's also a possibility that either now, or at some point in the near future, Quarterdeck will announce a liaison with a major U.S. telecommunications company and/or a telecommunications company in Europe eager to gain access to Quarterdeck's Internet software.

All of this comes on the heels of a remarkably fast turnaround at a company whose profits went steadily downhill since 1991, when the company went public. It fell deeply into the red last year. Not only has new management returned Quarterdeck to profitability, but the company's balance sheet is debt free and its coffers are flush with more than $30 million in cash.

Its stock, which plunged to a low of 2 from a high of 26, has quadrupled in the past few months -- closing yesterday at 8 5/8 on Nasdaq.

But despite the stock's strong performance, Quarterdeck's revival has generally gone unnoticed. It still has virtually no analyst coverage on Wall Street, and its stock still trades below its public offering price of 10.

And that's just the way the company wanted it. "They didn't want to create expectations," says Orin Hirschman of Adam Smith & Co. in New York, who started recommending the stock last December.

Quarterdeck's Internet connection involves four products, including its own version of a Web browser, which helps computer users navigate their way around the worldwide information network. "They hope to one-up Netscape," says one analyst, referring to the Mountain View company whose Internet browser has quickly become the industry standard. That's not as unrealistic as it seems. Unlike Netscape or any other Internet-software company, Quarterdeck has an established retail distribution network. "Overnight, I can ship to 25,000 retail outlets," says Emerick Woods, who runs Quarterdeck's Internet efforts.

That's a crucial element to the Quarterdeck story. "People who know how to sell stuff will beat people who are just technology heads," says Steve Ouditore of Zona Research in Redwood City.

It still remains to be seen whether Quarterdeck's Internet strategy has staying power, but CEO Gaston Bastiaens has a vested interest in making it work. A former Apple Computer executive who was involved in the development of the hand-held Newton, he is considered a good operations man who wants to make his own mark on a company. "He has worked for a lot of other people, but he's never been the top man," says Hirschman. "He considers this to be his big project -- his big baby, so to speak. He smells opportunity here."